


The Scars You Bring, the Scars You Leave Behind

by dragonifyoudare



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Freedom's Progress, Mass Effect 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 22:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9518867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonifyoudare/pseuds/dragonifyoudare
Summary: The first time Shepard has a moment alone with a mirror after Lazarus station is disturbing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by juniperjazz of Tumblr.

Morgan’s face was still hers, and that shouldn’t have been a relief, but it was. Lawson had said that they wanted her fully herself, and the Illusive Man might not have said he wanted her as a symbol, but it had been clear. He wanted Commander Shepard for Cerberus, the first human Spectre on his side. Morgan Shepard, the woman, was not the point.

She cataloged her features: the aquiline nose that ended low on her face and the gray-green, slightly tilted eyes, the prominent cheekbones and sharp jut of chin. She’d often wondered about her parents’ ethnicities. The features were still hers. That was the thing to focus on.

The scars were gone, though: the acid burn from Akuze and the big gash on her forehead from Elysium. She hadn’t seen her face without those in over half a decade, and it was disturbing. Her face looked _wrong_ , like it wasn’t quite hers. The skin didn’t help. It was tan rather than light brown, like it hasn’t seen a day in the sun, and smooth like a child’s.

It made sense. It made her nauseous.

Her hair had been a little longer than regulation allowed, before. Now there was just stubble, and the unfamiliar feeling of her helmet against her skin was distracting. She needed to _concentrate_. She needed to find a way to contact the Alliance and extricate herself from this situation, get away from Lawson and Taylor and the looming shadow of the Illusive Man. When she was free she would be able to think clearly, check facts, figure out what was going on here.

Freedom’s Progress was deserted. That was a fact. There hadn’t been a struggle. There hadn’t been --

“Commander?” Taylor’s voice broke through her thoughts. Morgan snapped her faceplate down and  turned off the bathroom faucet she’d come to investigate.

“Nothing,” said Morgan, and turned away from the mirror. She would break free, she would get back to the Alliance, and she would push through this. If it really had been two years, she would push through that too. She was a Marine, and she could fight through this, back to her life and her friends, and back to Kaidan, too.

A sense memory flashed through her mind: Kaidan’s hands in her hair, stroking it as they lay together the night before Ilos. Morgan had been able to forget everything but herself and him for a little while as they moved together, tangled in each other and their needs and, at least for her, love. He’d liked her hair.

Morgan shook herself and turned to Taylor.

"Let's move out."

**Author's Note:**

> In which I attempt to write a thing I can finish, rather than the beginning of something I can't, and succeed.


End file.
